Maid

by Stephanie Land

  After I clipped Mia’s car seat into place, we climbed into the huge car, and Grandpa said he needed to get gas. We pulled into a gas station and parked next to the pump. Grandpa looked at me for a second and then looked back at Mia. His eyes started to water.

  “I don’t have enough money,” he said, his face reddening again.

  “I’ll pay,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

  “Maybe I’ll go get us some coffee,” he said. “You probably need some coffee? I just switched to green tea. Do you want some green tea?”

  I wanted to joke about needing a few shots of whiskey but realized I’d be serious in my request. “Sure, Grandpa,” I said, forcing some kind of grin. “Coffee would be great.”

  Grandpa cared for my grandma through most of their marriage as her schizophrenia progressed, and her death a year and a half earlier had left him with a lot of spare time in the most desperate, lonely way. They’d known each other since kindergarten. As husband and wife, she towered over him, especially with the inches her teased hair added, because he stood only slightly over five feet tall. When I was Mia’s age and stayed with them, Grandpa never missed a chance to show me off to his friends, telling people about the tape recordings he had of me singing “Popeye the Sailor Man” and offering to play them.

  He moved out of the house after Grandma died. It was the only house I’d known him to live in, besides the trailer they’d had, and it felt strange to know that it was gone. For a while after that, he rented a room from a woman in town. I remember visiting, seeing the knickknacks I’d grown up admiring and playing with, and thinking how strange it felt to see him there, barely able to afford a single room. He still worked as a real estate agent, but the recession had slowed business drastically, and it hadn’t recovered. He started sleeping in the storage room at his office. My inability to help him brought a deep guilt for me, especially after he’d taken us in once during a fight with Travis. I wished so much I could somehow help.

  Every time I saw him, he tried to give me some family heirloom or coloring book with my mother’s name scrawled in the front. Sometimes I’d take a few to appease him and then leave them in my car to donate. I didn’t have room for any of that stuff. Grandpa would still insist I take them, telling me their stories: “Your great-great-great-grandma sold her wedding ring to buy that sewing machine,” he’d say. I couldn’t keep any of those heirlooms or give them the space they deserved to live in. I didn’t have room in my life to cherish them.

  * * *

  Travis returned my call while I pumped gas. He didn’t want any details; he just wanted to know where to come pick us up. I’d almost forgotten that I’d left a message on his phone. I felt like he’d want to know what happened. Maybe I wanted him to know. His voice sounded rushed, and I heard a diesel engine in the background.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Mia stared at me through the window. I twitched my nose at her, trying to smile, and pressed my finger to the glass. She touched the glass with her finger from the other side.

  “I’m hooking my parents’ truck up to the trailer,” he said, breathing heavily. I wondered if he thought he’d come pick up our smashed car.

  “No, Travis,” I said. “We’re fine. Everything’s taken care of.” I hung up before he could tell I was lying. I was too vulnerable to see him. I knew, even with my whole body still trembling with shock, that if Travis came to rescue us, to help put everything back in order, I’d risk wanting to be with him again. I’d spent all this time trying to make it on my own. Despite having called him, I didn’t want to go running back to his arms again.

  On the way home, it started to pour rain. I asked Grandpa to stop at Walmart and to wait with Mia in the car while I went into the store. I hurried inside with my head down, avoiding eye contact. I imagined that anyone who looked in my direction recognized me as that girl with the daughter she’d almost killed on the shoulder of Highway 20. I wanted, more than usual, to scream in the middle of a Walmart, to the point of it being so near uncontrollable it scared me. I couldn’t stop hearing the sound of the windows exploding. The sound repeated itself, so loud that I shut my eyes and clenched my jaw to keep silent.

  “Where are the fucking mermaid dolls?” I realized I said out loud when a little girl and her mother looked at me. The dolls were sold out; the space where they had hung was empty. But beneath it was the upgraded version: a bigger doll, with more hair, and a button you pushed to hear her speak, for $19.99. I grabbed it. I would juggle the bills later. There was no way I wasn’t going to retrieve my daughter’s fucking doll that afternoon.

  When we pulled up to the studio, rain continued to fall as Grandpa and I brought in my cleaning supplies and bags. A piece of glass fell from one of the bags onto the floor in our apartment, where it embedded into Mia’s heel but somehow caused her so little pain, she didn’t notice it at first. It was her only injury. Physically, anyway. And I could fix it.

  Grandpa stood in the apartment, in the small open space by the door, looking around. He’d never visited us here. None of my family had. I wondered if he could tell I’d gotten rid of things that he’d handed down to me.

  “You don’t have a microwave,” he said, his gaze fixed on the corner where the kitchen was.

  I looked at the counters, bare except for a cutting board and dish rack and too small for much else. “I don’t have room for a microwave,” I said.

  “You could put it on top of the fridge,” he said, pointing to where I’d put a plant. “I have one at the office that I don’t use. I’ll bring it over.”

  “Please, Grandpa,” I said, reaching down to pick up Mia. “I just don’t have room.”

  His eyes watered again. My phone started buzzing in my pocket. I recognized the long set of digits from my mom’s international phone numbers.

  “You called my mom?” I asked, unable to hide that I was annoyed.

  “Of course I did,” he said. “She should know her daughter and granddaughter were in an accident.”

  I felt my jaw clench. I knew that, now that Grandma was gone, Mom never missed a Sunday afternoon call to Grandpa. I knew she asked him if he’d seen us, or how we were doing, or what we were up to. In the moment, more than ever, I didn’t feel like she’d earned the right to any information about our accident. I had needed her that summer, when Mia dealt with so much sickness and needed tubes in her ears. I had needed her many times since she’d moved to Europe. I had needed her and couldn’t call to tell her. We could barely have a conversation anymore, our phone calls echoed with horrible reception while William sat close, listening to everything. I could almost hear him breathing. He’d chuckle whenever Mom made a joke. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t anymore. So I had stopped talking to her completely, again deciding it was less painful to have her out of my life than in it. It was easier not to want or expect anything at all from her. I was angry at her for leaving her life here. For staying away. I would never understand how she could. I didn’t want to try.

  Grandpa left, and I put Mia in the bath with bubbles and her new doll. Mom called again. I sat on the toilet next to the tub and saw my phone light up in my hand. I ignored it and watched Mia play with her new mermaid. Mia sat in the bath, her skin slick under bubbles, hair sticking to her cheeks. I wanted to crawl over to her, wrap her up in my arms, and place my ear on her chest to listen to her heart.

  I wondered if Mom had ever felt this way about me. I wondered why she never leaned in close after she hugged me good night, to give me reassurance of her presence, that she loved me so, so much. I wanted to know, but not enough to ask. Sometimes I’d imagine asking her, demanding it over the phone, but I knew nothing would come of it. She was there; that was enough for her. Maybe that’s all she ever felt she needed to be.

  Mia stayed up late that night, not just from the stuffy nose and itchy, painful eyes but because I didn’t want to put her to bed. The happy chirps of her voice kept me from falling into sobs. When she was watching me, I knew I needed to stay st
rong. We lay down in our twin bed, our heads on the same pillow, and faced each other. Then her eyes closed, her body twitched with sleep, and she let out a sigh, then rhythmic breaths. I watched her, listening.

  Mia slept for only an hour before a coughing fit woke her up again. I had already given her all the medicine I could. Her barking cough turned into a sort of growl, angry to be awake and so tired at the same time. I tried shushing her, singing “Wagon Wheel,” the song she’d loved lately, but nothing worked. Finally, from an almost primal place in my memory, I started to recite Goodnight Moon:

  Goodnight room, goodnight moon.

  Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.

  Goodnight light, and the red balloon.

  Goodnight chairs, goodnight bears.

  Mia calmed immediately to listen and fell back to sleep. I stroked the space between her eyebrows with my finger, crying as silently as I could, in disbelief that she’d survived.

  The following morning, I watched as Mia ate her oatmeal. I sat with a sort of fascination, still in awe of the miracle that she wasn’t hurt, so much that she didn’t seem real. I’d called Lonnie the day before to tell her what had happened and to request a day off to get things sorted, not knowing at the time how I’d do that. My body and mind were on autopilot. After breakfast, a man I’d been on a few dates with, Todd, was coming over to pick us up. Todd and I were supposed to go out that weekend, and somehow the night before I had remembered to cancel, unable to come up with any reason other than the truth. I didn’t want to admit that I was in trouble, that even my own family wasn’t able to help me out. Todd insisted I borrow a car he didn’t drive anymore, and I flinched at the thought. I really didn’t know what I thought of Todd, or if I liked him in a serious way or not. Some men, I’d discovered, had a bit of a hero complex when it came to dating me. They wanted to rush in and rescue the damsel in distress. I didn’t like to play that role, but in this situation, I didn’t have a choice. We absolutely had to have a car.

  I described Todd to Mia as “my friend,” explaining that he would take us to a spare car he said we could use for a while.

  “Then I’ll take you to your dad’s,” I explained, cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I took in a big breath and held it, the opposite of what I was supposed to do in moments like this, when my heart lurched and started to race. I would have to make the same journey as the day before, travel the same road, get back in a car with Mia. No matter how much I wanted to stay in bed, glued to Mia, I had to work. I had a house to clean the next day—one of my larger houses that took up most of my time on Thursdays. On top of that, classes started the following week, and I needed to organize my books and passwords for accessing the materials. And I supposed I had to celebrate my birthday in some way.

  As Todd drove us down I-5 toward the borrowed car, Mia sat quietly in the back seat. Her car seat seemed fine, but I knew, since it had been in an accident, it needed to be thrown away once I could afford a new one. Every time I looked at it, it reminded me of how close I had come to losing my daughter.

  Suddenly, Mia blurted out, “Ruby died, Mom.” Ruby was the name she had given to our Subaru, because of her maroon color and because I’d called her a Suba-Ruby once after I’d proudly packed all my cleaning supplies in the back for the first time.

  I turned to look at Mia and put my hand on her leg. She felt so fragile and small. I felt tears welling up in my eyes again. I’d found Ruby used but in immaculate condition, with only one hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Mia and I sometimes spent half our day in that car. Ruby had been over twenty years old, but it was one of the nicest vehicles I’d owned in several years. Our loss was great. Unimaginable. I couldn’t think about it.

  “Ruby died because of me, Mom,” Mia said, looking out the window, her voice small. “Because Ariel went out the window.”

  “Oh, honey,” I said, trying to turn my body to face her from the front seat. “No. It was an accident. It’s not your fault. If anything, it was my fault.”

  “You’re crying,” Mia said, her face turning red, her lower lip pouting, tears starting to swell in her eyelids. “You just wanted to save my Ariel.”

  I couldn’t look at her anymore, but I kept my hand on her leg. I wanted so much to cover my face with my hands, to allow my eyes and mouth to contort and submit into a mute sob. Instead, Todd and I glanced at each other, and I gave him a slight smile. I had to be okay. I had no choice.

  Todd pulled off the freeway, down a few streets, and parked behind a two-door Honda Accord. It reminded me of the cars that boys drove in high school, a life-sized version of the toy race cars my little brother had played with. He checked the fluids, turning signals, brakes, and headlights with a knowledgeable efficiency that I found attractive. Todd did have a lot of qualities I admired—he worked construction while building his own cabin on a wooded property near Port Townsend—I wasn’t sure why my heart wasn’t there.

  “I was about to sell it, so you can use it as long as you need,” he said and then handed me a key.

  “Thank you,” I managed to get out, and hugged him. I hoped he knew how much he’d saved me from total despair and possible homelessness. But then, how could he? I hadn’t told him how desperate my situation was. I’d wanted to appear somewhat as an equal to him, rather than, I don’t know, who I was. Dating anyone felt like a joke in that way.

  When I pulled out of the parking spot, my hands shook. My body felt jumpy, as though I’d had ten cups of coffee. I shouldn’t be driving, I thought. I’m not ready. I thought for sure I’d get us in an accident again, yet I was the only one who could get us to where we needed to go.

  At a stoplight, knowing the freeway entrance was coming up, I wished there was someone I could call to help or even talk to. But I couldn’t think of anyone who’d be able to understand what I was going through, unless they knew what it was like to be a single mom, the lone parent obligated to make ends meet like I did.

  When I talked to friends about my life, giving them even just a little peek into the window of the logistics, the stress, the constant juggling, I would hear the same thing again and again: “I don’t know how you do it.” When their husbands went out of town, or they worked late all the time, they’d say, “I don’t know how you do it,” shaking their heads, and I always tried not to react. I wanted to tell them those hours without your husband aren’t even close to replicating what it was like to be a single parent, but I let them believe it did. Arguing with them would reveal too much about myself, and I was never out to get anyone’s sympathy. Besides, they couldn’t know unless they felt the weight of poverty themselves. The desperation of pushing through because it was the only option. They couldn’t know how it felt to be me, the morning after the accident, about to drive a car down the same road where there was still glass from my car’s shattered windows, going on with my life like everything was normal, because that was the only choice I had.

  Though I’m sure my clients would have understood, the electric company wouldn’t. I wanted nothing but to sit on the couch with my sick kid and refill her sippy cup of juice while we watched her Curious George DVD three times in a row. But I had to get back to work. And I had to drive. I wasn’t sure which seemed more impossible.

  It was never a matter of “how” I did things. I’m sure any parent would do the same. Single parenting isn’t just being the only one to take care of your kid. It’s not about being able to “tap out” for a break or tag team bath- and bedtime; those were the least of the difficulties I faced. I had a crushing amount of responsibility. I took out the trash. I brought in the groceries I had gone to the store to select and buy. I cooked. I cleaned. I changed out the toilet paper. I made the bed. I dusted. I checked the oil in the car. I drove Mia to the doctor, to her dad’s house. I drove her to ballet class if I could find one that offered scholarships and then drove her back home again. I watched every twirl, every jump, and every trip down the slide. It was me who pushed her on the swing, put her to sleep at night, kissed h
er when she fell. When I sat down, I worried. With the stress gnawing at my stomach, worrying. I worried that my paycheck might not cover bills that month. I worried about Christmas, still four months away. I worried that Mia’s cough might become a sinus infection that would keep her out of day care. I worried that Jamie’s behavior was escalating, that we would get in a fight, that he would go back on his offer to pick her up at day care that week just to make it difficult for me. I worried that I would have to reschedule work or miss it altogether.

  Every single parent teetering on poverty does this. We work, we love, we do. And the stress of it all, the exhaustion, leaves us hollowed. Scraped out. Ghosts of our former selves. That’s how I felt for those few days after the accident, like I wasn’t fully connected to the ground when I walked. I knew that at any moment, a breeze could come and blow me away.

  21

  THE CLOWN HOUSE

  I called it the Clown House. The wife had an affinity for Thomas Kinkade landscape paintings, which filled most of the walls on her main floor. But the long staircase leading to the upper level was lined with paintings of clowns. Sad clowns. Close-ups of clown faces with eyes that followed me around. She had clown figurines, too, but the paintings were the worst. They made me feel helpless. I’d stare in a mix of horror and disgust and curiosity—why would anyone want those on their wall? What if the electricity went out and the beam of a flashlight caught one of the faces? Didn’t it scare the shit out of them?

  Once a month, I cleaned the bottom floor, where two bedrooms and a bathroom were set up for their two adult sons. It seemed like the boys had never lived in those rooms, but most of the relics from their childhood were neatly arranged. I dusted the Bell Biv DeVoe cassettes, the yearbooks, the Mickey Mouse clock; fluffed the pillows; and sat the teddy bears upright afterward. But that day, the first day at work after the accident, I again went straight for the bathroom first.